Cathedral Seating

Exploring Armstrong Woods State Natural Reserve a few days ago we stumbled across this miracle of a forest theater and its huge cathedral-like seating area. I don't know the history of this theater, but I speculate that it's a produce of the federal Civilian Conservation Corps, active in this park and so many other state parks during their critical development periods of the 1930s and 1940s.

It's a beautiful, reverent setting. But let the the pictures speak for themselves.

Note the pair of big-leafed maples curving over and framing the stage, which is backed by another big-leafed maple. Pictures always come up short in the redwoods. We were there on a moody, rain-sprinkled Monday morning that made the visual design experience even more powerful.

View from the stage! Does St. Peter's in Rome have this much seating?

Best Western in Wine County

Normally, I am not one to fawn over hotel architecture so when my wife booked us for a Best Western (near the freeway) in the Sonoma County wine country last weekend I don't think I had the planet's greatest expectations. But what a lovely surprise to overnight at Healdsburg's BW Dry Creek Inn. (Check out the YouTube video).

I love good outdoor rooms and this hotel had two. We strolled about after breakfast enjoying the ambience as staff set up for a working day's events and conferences. It was just the two of us, but I easily imagined the pleasure of a big family or group of friends drinkingwine by the fireplace in these outdoor rooms, kids running free and laughs all around at familiar family and friend stories. It definitely had a feel-good quality about it - and what better can you ask of thoughtful architecture? 

The atmospherics were Tuscan. In the midst of beautiful California wine country in April we indulged the feeling -in this unexpectedly tasteful Best Western just off the freeway.

Whimsical furniture

Wine themes in the pedestrian walkways

Latin inscription outside, which, if my high school Latin is still reliable, means:

 "There's wine. Drink up."

Sequoias

For all the wandering in awe of human-made environments, nothing quite tops what comes naturally - as in the Giant Sequoias of California. Hats off to California State Parks for the ambience of Calaveras Big Trees State Park.  My wife and I were there over the Fourth of July weekend, when it was so hot we picked the perfect morning and evening light and temperatures in which to walk two miles of trails in the North Grove. For much of the time we had the place to ourselves. These pictures show that for all the high-rises of Hong Kong and the splendor of say, California's state Capitol building, it's hard to beat a primeval forest in the Sierra Nevada at 7:30 in the morning.

Downtown, City of Angels

A few weeks ago long-time good friends in Southern California treated us to a tour of downtown Los Angeles with the Los Angeles Conservancy. On this particular Saturday morning we did the Broadway Theater and Commercial District walk. If you like downtowns I can't recommend this highly enough. We had a really knowledgeable guide who took us back to the pre-Depression days of the 1920s when this small, young Pacific city added a score of elegant theaters to its downtown core. We walked for two hours or more through a district that's since become a Latino shopping zone. As always, I like to look up to these great geometric squares and designs when architects and builders believed in beauty and embellishment, a time before it became apparently impossible to afford such displays of good taste.  

Yes, we did visit one theater, the interior of the Tower. It's used occasionally for rock shows and small presentations. As our guide said, these old movie palaces have been saved and preserved, but not yet found a new purpose. Sitting inside the Tower, I could only think it may take 50 more years for that purpose to materialize. In the meantime, cheers to those who saved these grand places!

Our walking companions pointed out this below as the work of a famed UK artist named Banksy.

Again, where do you see such attention to detail (below) in 2014?

We had the good fortune to be with a Los Angeles Times reporter who lives downtown and took us to the roof of a building now filled with garment manufacturing, but apparently being repackaged for a tech firm. Nice view from the roof...

Returning to Pershing Square via a wonderful fast tour of the Last Bookstore we arrived at the historic Biltmore Hotel  for a romp through the halls. This wall-size picture below is from a banquet at the hotel's opening almost a century ago.

And such great hallways!

It's so easy in California to think of Los Angeles in terms of sprawl and endless suburbia, and never to had much of any experience in downtown. Downtown in the City of Angels was real, with a huge farmers market and thousands of new residential units in the works. It has a long way to go and I'd advise about a million new trees if I was on the mayor's staff. But a wonderful way to spend a few hours before heading to Malibu, then to a great place for wine tasting near Thousand Oaks and home to our friends' house in Simi Valley. Oh, and of course, the weather was perfect.

Wine Country

We had family in town from Ohio so we ventured west on I-80 to the Napa Valley for wine tasting, picnicking and sightseeing. We loaded up on sandwiches and chips at Safeway in Napa and drove north on Highway 29 where our first stop was the iconic Robert Mondavi Winery. It had been years, but I remember how my wife and I dropped in here when we were newly married in the 1980s. The grounds were immaculate and so was the sense of the good life in California, in the pairing of good wine and good food. This is a feel good place, carrying on Mondavi taste, which is now part of a giant global corporation.

Redwoods

Having moved to California 35 years ago I know it's nearly impossible to take a great picture of redwoods. They're too big, too much. You have to capture them in your mind. Not so, however, the great outdoor furniture and walking infrastructure that accompanies them in places like Muir Woods National Monument north of San Francisco. When we visited recently I was taken by the four bridges spanning the gently running creek that meanders through the woods, the wooden plank walking trails and the fencing that keeps you where the rangers want you. A lovely place for looking up, down or  straight ahead on the trail.

A Beach House for Climate Change

We visited Stinson Beach recently in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area north of San Francisco. Here's a beach house ready for storm surges and sea-level rise, estimated at up to five or more feet by 2100, according to a National Research Council assessment for the State of California. Surf's up!